Hook or Crook

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘You’ll keep this under your hat?’ I said. ‘At least as far as all the hearsay goes?’

  ‘I’m no’ a bletherbag,’ he said. And I knew that he could hold his tongue when it suited him.

  ‘Do you remember that night?’ I asked him.

  ‘The night the poachers was here? Aye, I mind it fine. Eddie Donaldson was at me to airt out if I’d seen their van go by.’

  ‘And had you? Or were you in your bed?’

  ‘I was up. I was never one for a long night’s sleep, what wi’ the late-night sea-trout fishing and watching for poachers. I’d make it up by snoozing at odd times. And now that I could sleep in if I wanted, the habit’s too strong. And the rheumatics soon wake me again. I spend the most of my time in this chair, where I can see all that’s going on, and if I feel like a sleep I maybe lie down on the bed or maybe doze where I am. It’s a’ the same. I telled Eddie Donaldson that the poacher’s van never came this way, not before near three in the morn which is when I fell to sleeping.’

  It seemed important not to push him along too quickly. ‘If they didn’t come this way,’ I said, ‘which you wouldn’t really expect them to do, you couldn’t be expected to see them. Let’s concentrate on what you might have seen, and if you’ve spotted anything important you can tell me whether you’d like the young bobby to come round here. Fair enough?’

  He nodded gravely.

  ‘We’ll take it chronologically.’ I tried to see past him, but without pushing him aside my view was limited. ‘You can see the front of the hotel from here?’

  He nodded again. ‘I’m looking right at it. If it’s Sunday night that interests you, I saw yon barman putting the twa o’ them outside, yon dusky lad first and then the visiting fisher.’

  ‘But the next night, the Monday, around closing time. Did you see the visiting fisherman, Mr Hollister, come back?’

  ‘Aye. M’hm. The light was fading but it was still bright enough and I saw him fine. He spoke first to Jeannie Bruce and I saw her point to the car-park. And then . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is the way o’t. From here, I can see the back door of the hotel and a bit of the car-park, but the most o’t’s hidden by the corner of the bakery. Ha’e a look and you’ll see.’ I craned past him and saw for myself.

  ‘There’s times he parks his wee yellow car where I can see it, and times it’s hidden away, it depends how the hotel guests have parked. That night, the car was out of sight. The mannie — Mr Hollister — had a while to wait before the back door opened and young Alec, the barman, came out. That was as much as I saw, but I can tell you something else a’ the same. Yon barman, Alec, usually has a wee dog wi’ him and leaves it in the car. Many a time I’ve seen him come out during his breaks and let the beastie out for a wee run.

  ‘That night, it was a hot night and I had my window wide open. Just after yon Alec came out, I heard a noise. I couldn’t swear on oath, but I’m a’most sure it was the screech of a dog. It was some while after that when the wee car drove off.’

  ‘Did you see Mr Hollister leave?’ I asked.

  ‘No. But it was damn near dark by then and I wasn’t looking in particular. Besides, Alec might have been giving him a lift in the car.’

  That was an unpleasant possibility. I moved on quickly. ‘What about later? Did you see the district nurse come by?’

  ‘Aye. To Mary Callender’s house. It’ll have been to Mary’s Jimmy, I’m thinking, the laddie that has the fits.’

  ‘Did you see anybody walking around that time?’

  ‘Not that I can mind. I heard footsteps, though. They turned down towards the brig and came back later, but that footpath’s out of my sight.’

  It seemed that I had struck gold on Tony’s behalf. The information was coming in almost too fast. ‘What about the motor-caravan?’ I asked.

  ‘Like a van wi’ windows? Aye, there was one of those.’

  ‘Did it come to the car-park earlier or later?’

  ‘Than the footsteps? It came earlier and left again just after, about when Betty, the district nurse, went by. But it wasn’t the car-park it came to. It went by and I heard it stop, but by then it was somewhere out of my sight.’ He came to a halt and yawned hugely.

  ‘I’m keeping you up,’ I said.

  ‘Damned if I couldn’t be doing wi’ a sleep just now,’ he agreed. His eyes were closed already. ‘See yourself out. But come and see me again afore you leave, you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you,’ I said. ‘Good-night.’

  Chapter Nine

  On any fishing holiday the surfeit of fresh air, exercise and the occasional sniff of alcohol usually lull me into a sleep both longer and deeper than I can manage at home, what with Keith’s eccentric approach to the pressures of business and a bedmate who radiates therm after therm of waste heat in the night.

  But that night was different. I tossed, trying to find relaxation in a perfectly comfortable bed and to stop my mind from teasing incessantly at the questions surrounding the death of Bernard Hollister. The most obvious explanation, as expressed by Eric, depended on several weak links — inferences drawn from facts which, individually, could be explained more credibly in other ways. The next most promising theory, that Bernard Hollister had clashed with the poachers and paid the penalty, seemed barely credible within the timescale. It was also possible that Hollister had waited for Alec the barman and that Alec, either bearing a grudge for a punch in the face or incensed by seeing Hollister kick his dog, had lashed out. None of those pictures satisfied the critic in me and in particular I had difficulty envisaging either Alec or Imad Vahhaji still angry to the point of violence twenty-four hours after the original fracas.

  I slept in the end, but my mind must have been hard at work while I slept because I woke suddenly, to the early morning silence of a village on Sunday and a shaft of bright light through a chink in the curtains, with one overriding idea in my head.

  My watch suggested that if Tony McIver was not already up and about he ought to be; and he had been rash enough to give us the number at his digs. My bedside phone could only reach the outside world via the reception desk, but I could hear stirrings below as the hotel came to life and after some jiggling with the instrument I managed to persuade Mrs Bruce to give me an outside line.

  ‘Losh, man,’ Tony said when his landlady brought him to the phone, ‘I’m not long out of my bed.’

  ‘I’m still in mine,’ I said complacently.

  ‘Then what can be so urgent that you have to have —’ his voice faded and returned as he looked over his shoulder ‘— that woman practically drag me off the pot?’

  ‘Listen to me for ten seconds,’ I said, ‘and then you can make up your mind whether to get back into bed or not.’

  ‘I was already up and dressed,’ Tony protested. ‘DCI Fergusson phoned me an hour ago. He may be coming through later, which will certainly make my day. Our inquiries about cars seen near Granton last Monday night are still bearing fruit. Would a yellow sports car surprise you? Make and registration unspecified.’

  ‘Not particularly,’ I told him. ‘I think you should go down to the river here. Take a look under each end of the bridge among the weeds.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s something missing. They’ve searched the banks, but I can imagine somebody, probably your sergeant, taking his men down to the bridge and saying “Search the banks from here downstream”. That would be the logical thing to say, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then what are the men going to do but what they’d just been told to do? They’d descend to the bank and start working their way downstream, leaving the bridge behind. The bridge is the logical place and it’s the only place left.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘If you find it, you’ll know,’ I told him. Now that I had said my piece, sleep was coming over me in waves. ‘This phone isn’t very secure. And if somebody beats you to it, you’ll never solve your case.
’

  I fumbled the phone back onto its cradle and slept for another hour.

  When I made my way downstairs much later, bathed and shaved and dressed rather more respectably than for a day to be spent fishing, Eric was already at breakfast.

  Jean Bruce came to take my order. Her eyes were puffy and I could only think of her manner as defensive. ‘That Mr McIver was here looking for you,’ she said. She sniffed, to show her disapproval of a policeman who played dirty by sending a forceful local lady to winkle out of her what she had managed to withhold from him. ‘He seemed all het up about something. He’s gone back to the police station to do some phoning, he said, but he’ll be here later.’

  ‘Was he carrying anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  I ordered cereal, a boiled egg and coffee and she went away. Eric looked up from his mixed grill. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Maybe nothing,’ I said. ‘No salmon fishing on the sabbath. It would hardly be worth my while going all the way home even if home wasn’t filled with squalling brats. What do you fancy doing?’

  ‘A pox on Sunday. It’s the sort of day that gets God a bad name. I thought we might give young Tony a hand.’

  ‘That’s not my idea of a day of rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll probably overhaul my tackle and go for a walk. I might even sneak a small rod down to where the burn comes out and try for a trout.’ And without the distraction of Eric’s company, I might have added.

  I left Eric still working his way through a modest rack of toast and walked round to the shop for a brace of Sunday papers. The hotel bar was empty and cheerless so I made for the small coffee room. Eric joined me there almost immediately.

  We were still deep in the newspapers when Tony McIver poked his head round the door. ‘You’ve had your breakfasts?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ we said together.

  ‘A pity. I was looking forward to having a midmorning snack with you.’ He put a briefcase down on the table and vanished again, to return with a large cup of coffee. He chose the most comfortable of the vacant chairs, settled himself and stretched until his joints cracked. ‘You were absolutely right,’ he told me.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said from behind my paper.

  ‘But how did you know?’

  I sighed and put down the scandal-sheet. ‘I decided that we had to be looking at it upside-down. If the people we thought were lying were telling the truth, and those we thought might be telling the truth were lying, there was still one missing element. I told you my reasons for choosing that particular place to look.’

  Jean Bruce came in and looked at Tony without affection. ‘There’s a lady asking for you. A Mrs Walton.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘She didn’t say. Shall I ask her to come through? It will give you somebody else to bully and badger.’

  ‘He doesn’t need anybody else while he has you,’ Eric said. Miss Bruce gave a snort.

  ‘Ask her to come through, please,’ Tony said quickly. He sat in silence for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said suddenly, ‘I see what you mean. And I wish you’d given me that hint when you phoned me, before I spent half the morning typing up a report for Chief Superintendent Goth. He caught me on the phone earlier. He’s coming out soon. He says that some fresh information has reached him.’

  Eric put away his paper with a rattling noise. I saw that his eyes were beginning to pop. ‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ he demanded.

  ‘Bernard Hollister’s rifle,’ said Tony. ‘Carefully greased and put away in a glass-fibre case. Mr James phoned me early this morning and told me where to find it. Only, you were a little out,’ he told me. ‘I nearly missed it. It wasn’t down in the weeds at all. There’s a narrow gap that you’d hardly notice, between the concrete base of the footbridge and the railway sleepers that form the footway, leaving a broad ledge. It was pushed in there.’

  ‘At the village end of the bridge?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought it would be.’

  ‘But why?’

  Eric’s question probably referred to why the rifle had been hidden, but Tony’s mind had rushed ahead. ‘We don’t have the motive yet,’ he said. ‘But at least we know where to look.’

  Eric goggled at him. ‘I don’t know what on God’s earth you’re talking about. And I don’t believe that you do either.’

  ‘Likely not,’ said Tony.

  Jean Bruce opened the door again. ‘Mrs Walton,’ she announced formally.

  Mrs Walton came hesitantly into the room and we got to our feet. In an age in which women have abandoned their right to most of the old-fashioned courtesies in exchange for what they regard as equality, she was the sort of woman who still expected and got them. Bea might be just as much of a lady but she was also ‘one of the boys’ while Mrs Walton gave an impression of softness and femininity. Without being any great beauty she had a good figure, richly blond hair and a face which suggested a nature both gentle and loving even to the point of being passionate. She looked tired and her obviously good clothes were creased. They were lightweight clothes even for one of the better British summers and I wondered whether they had been chosen for their revelation of her figure. Her expensively styled hair was neatly groomed.

  ‘Detective Constable McIver?’ she asked, looking at me. Tony, apparently, was too young and Eric too overweight for consideration.

  ‘I’m McIver,’ Tony said. ‘And you’re Mrs Walton?’

  Her face remained carefully blank, showing neither surprise nor disappointment. ‘Helena Walton,’ she said. When we showed no reaction, she went on. ‘My father was Bernard Hollister.’

  ‘Ah,’ Tony said.

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced doubtfully at Eric and me.

  ‘Mr James and Mr Bell,’ Tony said. ‘They found your father’s body.’

  ‘In the Spey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Eric held a chair for her and she sank into it gracefully. ‘I have been all over the place, looking for you,’ she said plaintively. ‘It’s all very puzzling so you’ll have to bear with me. My husband’s at a conference in Milan and I went along for the ride, so to speak. That’s where messages began to catch up with us. My sister-in-law phoned, the local police at Esher sent a cable and somebody came all the way from the embassy in Rome. They all said the same thing, that my father was believed to be dead and I was needed to identify the body.

  ‘Jack couldn’t get away, so I flew back alone and hired a car at Inverness. They seemed to know very little at Inverness and not much more at Granton on Spey, but I made a nuisance of myself and kept nagging away and eventually a sympathetic sergeant took me aside and whispered that you were the person to see.’

  ‘You formally identified the body?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She gave a ladylike shudder and her eyes filled with tears. ‘That was Daddy. But I don’t understand. What are we doing here?’ She was younger than I had thought, as I realized as soon as I made allowances for grief and exhaustion.

  Tony managed to superimpose an expression of sorrow for her loss over his relief that any remaining doubt about the identity of the dead man had been resolved at last.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave you two alone,’ I suggested. Eric glowered at me. Nothing was going to shift him.

  ‘No, don’t go,’ Tony said. ‘You’ve been more help than anybody else so far. I’d like you to hear what Mrs Walton can tell me — if she doesn’t mind? And you may be able to answer some of her questions.’ I thought that he was more concerned not to be left alone with a woman who might burst into tears at any moment than over the lady’s feelings or any possible comment that we could hope to make.

  ‘I don’t know enough to say whether I mind or not,’ Mrs Walton said. ‘Won’t somebody tell me what’s going on? Please?’

  Out of her sight, Eric was nodding like an automaton.

  ‘At first glance,’ Tony said, ‘your father’s death seemed to be accidental. He might have
fallen while fishing and hit his head on a rock. But there was some doubt as to whether he had died near where he was found.’

  ‘You don’t mean that he had drifted downstream. Do you? The fact that we’re here . . .’

  ‘We think that he may have been moved.’

  ‘But that suggests . . .’ Mrs Walton’s voice trailed away again. ‘Do you suspect . . .?’

  ‘There’s a strong suggestion of foul play,’ Tony said. Neither of them seemed willing to utter the word ‘murder’.

  ‘But that’s awful!’ she said. ‘Terrible!’

  She groped hurriedly in a doeskin handbag for a small handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. We sat in embarrassment, as men will do. I wondered why it was worse to lose a loved one by murder rather than accident.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘Please go on.’ She blew her nose loudly. Her lace-bordered handkerchief had never been intended for such heavy duty. Eric gave her a handkerchief like a tablecloth. His manner suggested that he was close to patting her head or offering her a shoulder to cry on.

  ‘We can’t tell you the whole story,’ Tony said. ‘We don’t know it yet. But events of the last few hours suggest that we’re getting very close. I’ll tell you all that I’m allowed to tell you as soon as I can, I promise, and, if I’m not allowed, Mr James might respond to a little coaxing; but Chief Superintendent Goth will be coming here soon and I want to be ready for him. We know very little about your father. Please tell us as much as you can about him.’

  ‘Would it really help?’ she asked. ‘Because I can’t believe that anybody would want to hurt him. He was a very mild person, very slow to anger.’

  ‘And when he did get angry?’

  She managed the beginning of a smile. ‘That would be very unusual. At first, he’d be more inclined to wonder if he himself hadn’t been at fault. An apology or a friendly gesture would disarm him completely.’ (Tony met my eye and looked away again.) ‘If he was in the wrong, he wouldn’t be afraid to admit it. But once he’d decided that he was in the right, that was it. My mother said that it took him two days to get angry and ten years to forgive.’